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Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
What if you were to take the themes of WestWorld and The Matrix, add in a waldo (not the character) and some I Robot (the book not the substandard movie), what might you get? Well these are likely sources that helped to create Surrogates.
The concept is hardly [...]
Movie Preview: Zombieland
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
Sometimes you just want to go to a movie and be completely distracted from reality. Those types of movies that acheieve this distraction the best tend to never win Oscar’s or anything else. But at their best they are like what some call comfort foods. They satiate [...]
Sports fans and other fanatics
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
HE’S ALL TALK, SPORTS TALK THAT IS
Patton Oswalt prepares for a radio call-in.
Big Fan’s kick derives in large measure from the performance of Patton Oswalt, a comedian who plays a rabid New York Giants fan who works as a parking lot attendant but truly comes alive when he [...]
Movie Review: Gamer
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
First there was Rollerball (the original) then came The Running Man. Add in a bit of Resident Evil (at least how it plays off of it’s video game origins) and when you mix it all up you get Gamer. Well a handfull of hallucinogens helps too.
Perhaps its [...]
He pays to lose his soul
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Paul Giamatti prepares to surrender his soul.
Director Sophie Barthes‘ Cold Souls opened in Denver without benefit of a display ad in any newspaper and with no local reviewer weighing in on the movie, which was not screened in advance. That’s too bad because Barthes’ movie merits attention, even [...]
Dark humor goes back to high school
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
A rare moment of happiness in World’s Greatest Dad.
Aside from the face of a forlorn beagle, few living creatures are capable of looking more crestfallen than Robin Williams. When in full bloom, Williams’ sadness has a near accusatory quality, as if he expects someone to break through the [...]
An animated view of post-apocalyptic life
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Searching for meaning in a desolate world.
Early at a preview screening of the movie 9, I took this note: 9 joins with 5 in search of 2. This number-heavy plot summary makes sense — and then only marginally — when you realize that the characters in director Shane [...]
George Hamilton, the early years
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Renee Zellweger displays her charms in My One and Only.
When you see My One and Only – the surprisingly entertaining story of actor George Hamilton’s early years — you’ll know why Hamilton often appears to be in such good humor. The reasons aren’t obvious. Hamilton’s dad philandered, and [...]
Two comedies; too few laughs
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Sanrda Bullock leaps into badness in All About Steve.
Not enough laughs in Jason Bateman’s factory.
With Labor Day weekend upon us, it would be nice to report that there are comedy treats to be had at the nation’s multiplex. Sorry, not by my measure.
You might, however, take the weekend [...]
Will Ben and Andrew make a porno?
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
How far will Mark Duplass (left) and Joshua Leonard go? It’s hardly news that homoerotic impulses sometimes underlie the conflicted affections that emerge during buddy movies. I’m not saying that hidden or undigested gayness constitutes the whole buddy-movie story, but it can be an element.
Humpday, a movie that [...]
Faking Woodstock, Ang Lee misfires
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
I don’t know if Taking Woodstock is the most negligible movie in Ang Lee’s often-brilliant career, but it’s far from the most memorable. Situated somewhere between an addled teen comedy and a light-hearted social document, the movie proves more interesting in outline than as a 120-minute feature.
In 1969, [...]
Portrait of an artist as a cleaning lady
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
A little-known painter who died in 1942, Seraphine de Senlis spent much of her life working as a domestic. She cleaned houses, but spent her evenings painting, sometimes using blood taken from the local butcher shop as pigment. Spreading her canvases on the floor and working by candlelight, [...]
Migrating toward the margins
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
A junkie pleads with the woman he was paid to marry.
ANOTHER FILM FROM THE DARDENNE BROTHERS
What should be a major cinematic event — the arrival of a new Dardenne brothers film — has turned into a kind of footnote, a cinematic afterthought tucked beneath the ceaseless flow of [...]
A quick take on Tarantino’s ‘Basterds’
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Disregard the four-star reviews. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is no masterpiece. By the same token, you’d do equally well to discount reviews that claim the moral high ground, arguing that Tarantino has distorted history in ways that are deeply offensive and perhaps unforgivable.
At no time does Inglourious Basterds [...]
A romance with a difference
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
We sometimes need reminding that people with diseases or disorders are people — not diseases or disorders.
The movie Adam does a nice job of humanizing a character that easily could have served as little more than an emblem for disability. The movie’s main character suffers from Asperger Syndrome, [...]
Agnes Varda travels down memory lane
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
A FILMMAKER REMEMBERS
The longer life goes on, the more we seem to rely on memory and the more we fear its eventual loss. In fretful moments, we ponder the ravages of dementia or Alzheimer’s, perhaps panicking at the thought that age and disease might rob us of the [...]
There’s no easy way to say this…
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by DVD Panache Blog
…but DVD Panache is over. Sorry, baby.
The good news is, there’s now a new blog, so after you read this post head on over to A Shot At The Dark.
What did DVD Panache do to deserve such a fate? Time, for one. It’s been a long time [...]
Movie Preview: Ong Bak 2
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
You just knew there had to be a sequel. Tony Jaa became too much of a hit to not get another crack at this film. But this new film takes a very different direction indeed.
Unlike most sequels, Ong Bak 2 is jumping right to a prequel stage. [...]
Aliens are repulsive, but we’re worse
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Brutish humans victimize alien beings from outer space. That sounds like a formula lifted from some long-forgotten sci-fi trash of the ’50s, but director Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is very much a product of the misanthropic present. The aliens may not be saints, but they’re the closest we [...]
Movie Review: GI Joe
Rating 4.33 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
The summer movies of 2009 have been a series of letdowns. Which is not to be confused with the amount of money that the films have generated. When all you have is the equivalent of sand instead of the water of entertainment, well many go and spend [...]
And now for a brief intermission
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
I leave town and a torrential rain falls, John Hughes dies and who knows what else? If you believe in forebodings, none of these qualify as particularly good omens for the coming week, which I’m spending in NYC, with a planned foray into the Pennsylvania mountains. I may [...]
‘The Cove,’ a riveting documentary
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
The Cove might be the most exciting of all the recent movies that have attempted to deal with environmental issues — from An Inconvenient Truth to Food, Inc. to End of the Line. I’m referring to a broad spectrum of problems that encompass everything from a nutrition-imperiled food [...]
Julia is more interesting than Julie
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
Here’s my fantasy: At some point during the filming of Julie & Julia, director Nora Ephron had to give instructions to Meryl Streep, who plays master chef Julia Child.
“Just be taller, Meryl,” Ephron might have said, encouraging Streep to find ways to suggest all of Child’s 6 feet, [...]
The year’s best satire keeps us ‘In the Loop’
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed
If this year produces a better (or more bitter) satire than In the Loop, I can’t wait to see it.
This British import about a pending war in the Middle East proves compelling and funny, mostly because just about everything in it rings true on some level. The government [...]
Alien movie prequel: what will Hollywood deliver
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Written by Black Entertainment USA
In Hollywood these days there is nothing better than re-working something that someone else has already done. It cuts the cost of writing, set design, and often entertainment value. Examples of this are rampant in the last decade.
Sequels are the current big thing. Why tough out a [...]
